Re: An apology to all

[Chad Choi Lin <chadlin@nyetcom.com>]

Tony Ward (tward@XXXXenteract.com) wrote:

> Comp.sys.apple2 has never really been an altogether happy place to hang
> out, at least not in the 6 years I have been reading it. But it has
> recently degenerated so much into pointless diatribes and sentence for
> sentence nitpicking replies that I am, for the first time, truly unhappy
> to be here. So I'm going to go away for a while. Applaud if you like. I
> will continue to respond to email on this and any other subject, and I
> will remain as active as ever on Delphi and Genie where there are people
> who still care about the Apple II computer.

Mr. Ward, I seriously think you owe us another apology for that apology.
"Pointless diatribes" and "where there are people who still care about
the Apple II computer," indeed!

First of all, what makes you think that comp.sys.apple2 has degenerated
in any way that is different from what has happened to the rest of
Usenet, or the Internet in general? Old timers and veterans from all
over the net (myself included) are complaining all the time about the
ever-increasing drop in the signal-to-noise ratio, the mounting traffic
problems on the net, and the growing spread of crass commercialism
throughout what used to be a refreshingly intellectual playground.
Discussion groups and news forums everywhere have more electronic
arguments and flame wars than ever before -- but part of the reason is
that the Internet has expanded to include more people than anyone ever
thought possible. With unmoderated Usenet groups freely available to so
many more people comes the increased likelihood that those people will
eventually get into verbal fistfights over the things they care so
passionately about, whether they be dated computer systems or beanie
babies. That is a consequence of permitting a free dialogue of ideas and
opinions.

Second, whatever gave you the impression that the netizens at
comp.sys.apple2 don't care about the Apple II all that much? If it is
because so many people disagree with your particular views, maybe you
need to try looking at the issues from their perspective. Let me help
you by telling you a tale about the Altair, Bill Gates, and a thing
called Tiny BASIC....

Once Upon A Time, there were no personal home computers. If you wanted a
computer that you could use at home -- and wouldn't take up an entire
room! -- the least expensive options (in terms of money) were to design
and build your own system or to purchase a mail-order kit. The first
such do-it-yourself package was the Altair 8800 computer, first made
available in January '75 by a company called MITS.

The Altair 8800 was the first of its kind, a computer running on a
single Intel 8080 processor chip with an S-100 bus for plugging in
almost any type of device you could imagine -- memory expansion boards,
video output cards, disk drive controllers, and so on. At the time, it
was the most exciting development in the history of computing because it
offered so much potential in a box that could sit on a kitchen table.
The only problem was that you had to put the thing together yourself,
and it didn't come with anything else -- not even a keyboard and monitor
to work with.

When it made its debut in an article in Popular Electronics, MITS hadn't
even started building the memory boards they had planned to expand its
miniscule 256 *bytes* of included memory. And once you had successfully
assembled the Altair, you would have only a set of small toggle switches
(which allowed you to manually set bits inside the machine) and a row of
LED indicator lights on the front panel (to show you what the status of
those bits was). Nevertheless, the Altair was a smashing success,
generating well over a million dollars in mail orders for MITS.
Eventually they would make available other products to go with their
computer kit, including keyboards and the aforementioned memory
upgrades. What Altair owners really wanted, however, was BASIC.

The BASIC language was highly coveted because it would greatly improve
the user's ability to write programs (the Altair didn't come with any).
Unfortunately, it was an interpreted language, so that BASIC had to
reside in memory along with the user's program code. Even with a 4K
memory upgrade, that did not leave a lot of room to work with. Then came
along two college students named Paul Allen and Bill Gates.

Allen and Gates had read the Altair magazine article and were eager to
write a "tiny BASIC" -- a BASIC system small enough to run inside of 4K
with enough space leftover for a program. They did just that, and sold
it to MITS. Unfortunately, all this took time, and meanwhile Altair
owners were waiting impatiently for MITS to deliver their
advance-ordered copies of Altair BASIC. Also, the price of Altair BASIC
was well over a hundred dollars, and many computer hobbyists saw this as
being excessively high.

What happened next was that someone got a hold of Altair BASIC and began
passing out copies of it to his friends and fellow computer enthusiasts.
When Bill Gates caught wind of this, he was furious. Gates had written
Altair BASIC to make money, and instead users were just copying tapes
and passing them around like snack trays. How was he going to make a
profit from that? In fact, Gates would write a letter in which he
complained about "software theft" and send it to magazines, as well as
an organization called the Homebrew Computer Club.

Though the letter was hardly an attack on all computer users, it
generated a lot of angry replies -- some Altair users had already
ordered and paid for a copy of Altair BASIC but never received it.
Others wanted to try out the Altair BASIC before shelling out the 100+
dollars to buy it. Most users, however, said that they would pay for
Altair BASIC if the price was lower. One Homebrew Computer Club regular,
Tom Pittman, decided to prove them right.

Pittman was a very quiet but highly skilled hi-tech fan who was known in
the club for his programming ability. He set out to write his own
version of Altair BASIC, which he would call "Tiny BASIC," and charge
only $5 for each copy. Amazingly, Tiny BASIC turned out to be superior
to the Allen/Gates version, boasting such features as a full command set
and support for inline comments. But what really stood out was the
response from people who wanted it.

Within several days of putting out an ad in _Byte_ magazine, Pittman
received over fifty dollars from people who wanted to buy Tiny BASIC,
and the orders kept coming in. Some people sent in ten dollars and
included a note saying that five was too little. Others sent in the five
dollars but wrote to Pittman that he didn't need to send them a copy;
they already got Tiny BASIC from a friend. The point was, Altair BASIC
was pirated because it was outrageously overpriced; Tiny BASIC wasn't.

In the end, how you feel about software piracy and copyright law depends
on whether you view software as a commodity to be bought and sold
("Software Piracy Is Against The Law! Obey The Code!") or as a resource
to be shared and enjoyed by a community ("All Information Should Be
Free! Stop Software Hoarding!"). Like any matter of opinion, it is
something to be decided on by the individual only, and if you wish to
cling to the idea that "the law is the law" then you need to take a hard
look at the history of law. Some nefarious (not to mention silly) things
have been done in the past, all in the name of the law.

-- 
Peace, Love, and Apple II Forever!
Chad Choi Lin
chadlin@nyetcom.com

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